Marketing is not about you

“Humblebragging” will not win your customers’ trust

Marketing. It’s all about getting your brand name out there – making your products, services, you, a force to be reckoned with, on an ever so competitive market. Right? While this might still be (partly) true for B2C marketing, B2B is a different story – literally.

Are you a glutton for punishment?

I think we can all agree that purchases business-to-business, is more often than not a question of larger order values than say, the average consumer’s daily grocery shopping. B2B decision-making on the customer end of things, therefore, tends to work a lot differently than in B2C. Should you make the wrong decision, you will be held accountable and, unless you’re a glutton for punishment, you will want to avoid that situation by all means.

Building you customers’ trust

This is why marketing B2B should focus on building your potential customers’ trust. To assure the different decision-makers that you are the go-to-guy, that actually knows what they need – and is able to deliver. The content you create for marketing purposes must reflect just that.

There are, of course, an array of ways to create content that helps you build that trust, but if I could give you one piece of advice that covers them all, it would be this: Don’t make it about you!

They don’t care!

Why? It’s simple (and a bit harsh) – they don’t care about you. They care about how you can help them. Business as usual. It sounds oh so simple – you might even think that this is already your focus when you communicate with your customers – but trust me; it’s not. Take a close – and honest – look at all the content you’ve created in, say, the past six months. How much of it does not mention your brand name?

For me as a content writer, getting this message across is sometimes a bit of a… Well, let’s just call it “a challenge”. New customers, in particular, often ask me why the article I’ve written for them doesn’t mention the company name or at least quote the employee that I interviewed. Once more: Your customers don’t care.

Leave yourself out of the equation

What they really want to know is whether or not you understand their business and the problems that they are facing. If you do, and if you can prove it, your customers are more likely to trust that you can provide them with a solution. Make your content about them and you can be sure that they will read it. Leave out the humblebragging about your company’s achievements – your company will be taken much more seriously if you prove your own point. Show that you know what you’re talking about instead of just boasting.

They’re not stupid, you know…

Some of you might think: “Well, how will our customers know that we’re the ones saying what we’re saying, if we can’t even mention ourselves?”. Easy – the content is published on your platform, isn’t it? Don’t underestimate your customers’ ability to put two and two together…

Though it might seem as if I’m trying to lecture you, I’m not. I know that truly applying this strategy is a difficult thing to do. I myself had to rethink and relearn just about everything I’ve ever known about marketing when I started working account-based. But it does work, and my articles thankfully have the statistic figures to back up that statement.